What information should suppliers see about our work orders, and what should we see about theirs?

This question refers to how much work order detail should be shared between a manufacturer and its suppliers in order to coordinate production, while still protecting sensitive commercial, technical and compliance information.

Information suppliers typically see about your work orders

Suppliers usually need enough information to plan, execute and confirm their part of the work, but not full visibility into your internal operations. Commonly shared elements include:

• Identifiers and context: your purchase order number, an external-facing work-order or job number, part or material numbers, revision levels and item descriptions.
• Quantity and timing: ordered quantities, due dates, required ship dates, and any key milestones that affect their processing or delivery.
• Technical requirements: controlled drawings, specifications, bills of material for the portion they supply, process instructions relevant to their work, and required equipment or material characteristics.
• Quality and compliance requirements: acceptance criteria, sampling plans relevant to the supplied part or service, required inspections or certifications, and key regulatory or customer requirements they must meet.
• Logistics information: ship-to locations, labeling and packaging requirements, and any routing instructions.
• Change notifications: updates to requirements, revisions or dates that affect their work, along with clear version control and effective dates.

Suppliers are typically not given full visibility into internal labor routing, detailed cost breakdowns, unrelated operations on the same work order, or sensitive customer information unless there is a specific need.

Information you typically see about supplier work orders

Manufacturers usually need enough detail about supplier work orders to manage risk, schedule alignment and quality. Commonly requested elements include:

• Order and part identifiers: the supplier’s work-order or job number, their part numbers, and cross-references to your purchase orders and item numbers.
• Status and progress: current order status, completion percentages or operation-level status when available, and projected ship or completion dates.
• Capacity and lead times: planned lead times, acknowledgments of requested dates, and early warning when capacity or material constraints will affect delivery.
• Quality and nonconformance data: inspection results, certificates of conformity or analysis as applicable, and notifications of nonconformances or rework that affect delivery or product quality.
• Traceability data: lot or batch numbers, serial numbers when relevant, material heat numbers, and genealogy links needed for regulated or safety-critical products.
• Change and deviation records: agreed changes to specifications or dates, approved deviations or concessions, and associated references.

Manufacturers normally do not need full access to the supplier’s internal cost structure, unrelated customer orders, or proprietary process details, unless formally agreed for technical or regulatory reasons.

Manufacturing and MES context

In integrated OT/IT and MES/ERP environments, this question often drives how external work orders are represented and synchronized between systems. Common approaches include:

• Exposing a limited, supplier-safe view of internal work orders through supplier portals or EDI, omitting internal routing and cost data.
• Mapping your purchase order and work-order identifiers to the supplier’s work-order numbers to support status tracking, traceability and genealogy.
• Defining standard data fields for shared order status, dates and quality results so both sides can automate updates and avoid manual re-entry.

The exact boundaries of what each party can see are usually defined in contracts, quality agreements and data-sharing policies, and may be influenced by regulatory, export-control or confidentiality requirements.